I can change the sony driver to use the plugboard when writing to its database, but the changes are non-trivial. My concern is that any mistake will change existing collection data. My experience to date with that sort of mistake has not been at all pleasant.

Understandable. And the Sony collection thing is sort of ok.

I am trying to get the plugboard working adequately for my mother's kindle 3 and was hoping to be able to test/do it without actually having the kindle. (I have it now but her birthday is getting close)

My mother is 85 and lives several thousand miles away so her being able to do it herself is problematic.

Using this example

Quote:

{series}{series_index:0>2s| - | - }{title}

I get this on the kindle 3
Along Came a Spider - James PattersonAC1.mobi

And this on save to disk and on folder device.
Along Came a Spider - James Patterson.mobi